News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1887-02-03
SIXTY YEARS AGO.
The Pathetic story of n Can adian Pioneer
Family.
From the Toronto Contario) Globe

To convey, however, to the younger
generation of Ontarians an idea of some
of the difficulties which our forefathers
encountered in subduing the dense
forests of our province, l will relate
true instance of an occurrence about go
years ago:
A settler and his wife and two child
rem moved into the township of Ops,
into the dense forest eight miles from
the nearest settler. He chopped away
all alone for some months, and at
| length got hole in the forest and
log house erected for himself and his
family To describe this log house is
the next thing in order IN relating the
occurrence to follow: The logs were
peeled and notched at the ends and laid
up square simply, each tier of logs max
| ing his house the diameter of a log
higher. A hole was cut through the
logs for door, and another for a win
dow. To form door he had split
some thin slabs from a stralght-grained
cedar and pinned them with wooden
pins to cross Stats.
But the most ingenious part of the
construction was the hinges of the
door. Proper iron hinges he had not
and could not get. With his augur he
bored hole in the end of small piece
of wood, and sharpening the other end
| of this piece with his axe to the size of
the augur, he then bored hole INTO
one of the logs of the house, constitut-
ing in part the door jamb, and drove
the piece of wood into this hole. This
made, the top part of the hinge and the
bottom part was made IN exactly the
same way. Now to the door in like
manner he fastened two pegs of wood
with holes bored into their ends by Dor
| ing holes into the side of the door.
| Placing the ends of the hinges above
one another, they presented the four
ends with holes leading through them
| one above the other. Next he made q
long pin with his handy jackknife,
! leaving a rim on the end of it, and long
enough to reach from the top to the
lower hinge Through the holes at the
end of the hinges this long pin was
placed, and thus the door was hung.
The roof of the log house was per-
haps the greatest curiosity. Boards the
settler could not get, no shingles, until
he could have time to make them with
his own hands. Hollow Eastwood trees
were generally used. These would be
first cut the proper length and then
sp it through the centre, each half
forming a trough, as it were, with the
ends. First a layer of the Eastwood
troughs was laid all over the housetop,
upon their backs, or bark side down.
Over these was laid another layer of
these troughs. exactly reversed or bark
side up, and the edges of the upper
layer fitted into the hollows of the |
lower layer. And so the settler got a
roof to his first house, and such roof |
shed water tolerably well too, unit the |
logs became too Iotten
This Ops settler got in small crop |
in his hole in the woods, right around his |
rude log house which I have been de |
scribing. Then the virgin soil pro
duC.3 houutifaily, and e the crops |
were once put IN it was almost sure to |
produce When Fall came on he did |
have quite a crop, but unfortunately he |
was taken sick and confined to his ruee
bed and unable to do his harvesting. |
His nearest neighbors eight miles |
away, followed the "blazes" on the |
trees through the woods, and came and |
secured the settlers crop for him, leav- |
ing him and his household all alone in
the deep forest. DAYS and weeks rolled |
along, ana no one came again anu lne |
poor man got steadily worse.
Winter at last set in with the severe |
cold of those days. Snow, deep and |
lasting, came next, and covered all with |
a pure white mantle. To have large |
pile of logs at the door was the custom |
in those days to supply the Winter fire |
in the great capacious fireplace. Our |
settler had not neglected to get up the
traditional and useful pile of logs before
his illness Many dreary days passed |
over this little household, showed in as
they were, eight miles from anybody, |
and the husband and mainstay still sick, |
and gradually getting weaker. Wolves |
howled around the door nightly. See |
ing no one about out of doors they |
nightly became bolder, and would ap-
proach to the very door of this log cabin |
itself.
The husband died, to the poor dis
consulate wife's inexpressible grie, and |
left her alone in her solitary loneliness |
with her two children, the eldest of |
whom was only years of age, and the |
second ore only just able to walk. Pic |
ture, if you can, readers, this poor |
woman's dire straights to which she is |
now reduced A dead husband in her
log cabin, and no one nearer than eight |
miles to help her perform the sacred |
rites of sepulture There was an old |
mattock her husband had used in grub |
bing up the roots in his clearing. With |
this she attempted to dig a grave for |
her deceased helpmate. Unfortunately |
for her, however, the snow had fallen |
rather late that Fall, and the ground |
had become frozen quite hard and deep |
before the snow came. To do all she |
could she could not dig through the |
deep frost with this old mattock, and |
she began to almost think she could |
not bury her husband at all, To place |
the body out of doors she dare not, for
then it would only become food for the |
prowling wolves, and the idea was so
revolving to her that she natur lily |
shrank from it.
Guess as you can, reader, you can up
to this point scarcely see any solution
of the difficulty. Recollect the pile of
logs st the door, beside the house
With the aid of handspike she rolled |
back away from the side of the house
large log from which the others above |
# had been lately removed for the |
daily burning To her Joy, under this |
log, the ground was scarcely frozen,
being under the pile, and sheltered by
the side of the cabin. With the mat
took she dug grave right there beside
the cabin, and dragged her husbands
body to it, and rolled it into the hole,
and covered it over with the dirt taken
out Back again over the grave she
rolled the big log with tn handspike,
that the wolves might not be able to
disinter the body. To the settlement,
eight miles away, she then went, lead
ing her youngest child, while the other
followed in the track made in the deep
snow nearly I'D to their Mnists This is |